UK MET Gestapo's raid on journalist ruled illegal: Under pro-Israel influence?
Press Gazette: Met Police raid on journalist over Palestine tweets was illegal, judge rules:
"A UK journalist has won a victory against the Met Police after the force raided his home and seized phones and computer equipment following a complaint over posts on X (formerly Twitter)...
The force originally seized the material as part of an investigation into alleged offences under the Terrorism Acts 2000 and 2006..."
https://twitter.com/jocelynhurndall/status/1927417197674000413
Asa Winstanley: Judge rules October raid on my home was unlawful:
"The most senior judge at London’s Central Criminal Court ruled on 13 May that the search warrants used in the raid were unlawfully issued and said the police must hand back all the computers, phones and other devices that they took that day...
As my colleague at The Electronic Intifada Ali Abunimah reported at the time: “Approximately 10 officers arrived at [Asa] Winstanley’s North London home before 6 am and served the journalist with warrants and other papers authorising them to search his house and vehicle for devices and documents.”
Police have now admitted these warrants were improperly obtained and therefore illegal.
In his ruling the Recorder of London, Mark Lucraft KC (the Old Bailey’s highest circuit judge) wrote that he was “very troubled by the way in which the search warrant was drafted, approved and granted where items were to be seized from a journalist”.
The judge denied the Metropolitan Police’s request for a Production Order — a legal power that can be invoked in British eportedcourts which could require journalists to disclose documents in certain — extremely limited — cases of suspected wrongdoing.
In essence, the police were asking the court to retrospectively legitimise their unlawful raid. This request was denied...
The only reason given by the police in their case at the Old Bailey as to why they should be granted access to the journalistic devices they illegally seized was “attribution” of my Twitter/X account.
In other words, they claimed to have needed the devices to make sure it really was my Twitter account! They could have just asked me...
The police later disclosed to my lawyers two detailed reports (from October 2023 and February 2024) by their “Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit”, containing no less than 80 pages of screenshots of tweets alongside commentary from the police.
The first report states that it was compiled after “a complaint” by an unspecified person or persons...
The second report states it was produced after the unit was “contacted by a UK-based counter extremism think tank who expressed concern about a number of posts by Twitter User @AsaWinstanley.”
This “think tank” is not named in the report, but it’s highly likely that the police only consulted groups with a pro-Israel bias."
https://asawinstanley.substack.com/p/judge-rules-october-raid-on-my-home
#DumbTank